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Cmdr Winnard parked up outside lave station to listen to the latest lave radio, he was all excited he hadn’t slept in months, soon the dulcet tones of the radio presenters came over the airwaves, apparently one of them had graduated to big boy pants this month and Cmdr Winnard wanted to know which one of the presenters had managed it. He struggled through the introductions trying hard to keep his eyes open and his ears listening, it was no use the repetivity of the subjects had lulled him off to sleep again, He never would find out who graduated….

It had been thirty years. Thirty years since he first picked up his Pilot’s license and left to seek his fortune.

So many stories bridged that time and now, adventures without number out in the vast, empty spaces beyond. The tedium of the long hauls, the terror and excitement of combat, the fear as atmosphere vented to vacuum, the jubilation of triumph.

The Cobra’s controls were worn with time and use, but they still responded as well as they ever had. He opened a channel, made his final course corrections.

The last sidewinder met it’s fiery doom. “Sir, we just lost Alpha One. Cutter is now turning towards us”. Fear was clearly audible in the Lieutenants voice. “Orders Captain?” “Retract weapons and reroute energy to the frameshiftdrive. Incoming fire made the shields glow. “Skipper we can’t jump with imps on our tail.” “Helm, set an intercept course, his shields are down. Ram the bastard, that way we can buy the time we need for the jump to Lave station.” Claxons wailing and bulkheads bursting but the clipper was finally adrift venting atmosphere in their wake. A lone voice counted 4,3,2,1

‘Great’, she thought as he heard the laugh of the pirate over his Comms. Muting the coms and she eyed the cool down time of his FSD. 10 seconds.

The hauler shook violently as it was riddled by the by the pirate’s guns. The pilot hit the afterburner and threw the ship into a violent roll while she quickly disabled the flight assist. She heard the ship groan as it spun and flew forward at top speed. With all power diverted to the systems she watched a halo of rounds whizz by his canopy.

She hit the jump button and held her breath as she was the drive bar fill in the hub. The hauler took a second hit, and saw that the hull was down to 45%. She started to wonder if removing the shield battery to add a 3rd cargo rack was the best idea.

Then she saw the beautiful blue of the cruise speed, and quickly selected the closest station. She jammed on the throttle and swung the hauler into a intercept.

Lave Station’s comms panel lit up: **PRIORITY TRAFFIC** flashed onscreen, angry and red.
The room fell silent.
“…day, mayday, this is the …ship Daedalus, we are und …tack from vessels of unknown …in Lave Station, this is th… …dalus, …appear …alien in origin …mayd …”
“What?” exclaimed the Station Cmdr, “The Daedalus vanished mid-jump over 30 years ago…”
“..ave Station, do you copy… Thargoids are com…”
Space outside the station boiled and seethed. Strange, alien shapes began to emerge from the depths.
Like a herald of death, the wreckage of the Daedalus floated on before them.
The Thargoids were here.

Drifting slowly Carl matched his ships rotation to that of Lave station, he had done this thousands of times before. His mind drifted off with thoughts of the shiny new cobra that was waiting for him after this run of rares, it had been a hard grind to get to the half million credits but it would all be worth it for a grade A cobra. No multiple jumps, wasted time Suddenly alarms sound and a “Trespass Warning” flashes on the screen the 15 second timer starts counting down, pulling back and firing boosters, 2, 1 lasers flash, ship disintegrates.

Commander Stroud sat at his desk looking exacerbated, cigarette in hand “What do you mean they want it back?”
The Alliance representative on the other end of the handset remonstrated.
He pressed his argument “But this is the heaviest trafficked system in the damn Alliance! We got the Orbis station following the Revolution as part Lave’s entry package!”
The response was firm. The line went dead.
Stroud sighed and rubbed his temples. Stubbing out the cigarette, he opened the intercom to his secretary “Carole, Get the Tionisla graveyard on the line. See if we can get the old Coriolis back.”

The blue halo fades as the viper emerges from supercuise. Ahead lies the light studded geometric shape of Lave Station. Outside a dozen ships are coming and going. Normal business for a busy station, but the pilot is looking for something else. It takes a few moments to find the innocuous sidewinder hanging motionless near the bulk of the station. The pilot can’t tell from this range but he know instinctively that it’ll be orange.
The pilot checks the time. Five minutes until the show starts. He guns the viper’s engines and deploys the hardpoints. There’s no time to waste.

Stuck in sub-light speed! He had almost reached Lave when his FSD failed. Now he was getting a stern reminder about how big was outer space. Sometimes “do-able” is worse than “hopeless”. He had the resources to make the eight week crawl, but the computer glitch that had taken out his drive had also wiped all his media files. It was going to be a long boring trip.

His comms could still take incoming calls. He flicked a switch and heard “You’re listening to L-L-Lave Radio: the hottest station this side of Diso…” He winced and flicked the switch off.

Captain Seamus Young signed the paperwork from Faulcon deLacy, accepting the final shipment of Viper Mk IIIs into the Lave Station Authority. Beautiful, heavily armored, and more deadly with two extra hardpoints, the newest model was a marked improvement over the Mk IIs.

The following day he oversaw the decommissioning of the final Mk IIs.

“On this 5th day of the seventh month of 3288, we bid a fond farewell to the last of our old fleet,” he said as the station opened fire and tore the four to pieces.

Commander Madeleine Powers approached Lave station, aiming to drop out of supercruise as close as possible. Her hold was filled with rare alien eggs found on the edges of space, a promise of life in luxury.

“Disengaging” – only seconds to the sanctuary beyond the entrance grills.

On her vision’s edge a dark insectoid shape emerged from sparkling clouds, big enough to block out half of the sun.

A green beam shot from the front of the structure directly at Lave. Just through the blast doors she saw the back half of the station already starting to drift off into space.

The Orca gently lifted from the launch pad and began it’s slow, graceful glid towards the starport exit.
The Captian rose from her seat. “You have the helm, number one. I’m going to address our passengers.”

She entered the viewing lounge, filled with hundreds of guests gazing out.
Nodding to the technician she cleared her throat, announcing her presence. Her voice was amplified throughout the lounge.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the start of the galaxy history tour. Soon we will park outside the station to witness the Celebration Departure Flight recalling the glory days of The Lave Pilots Acadamy”

You want to be one of the elite few, yes? Then keep climbing.
Forget we’re only one metre away from the void. We got RemLocks anyway.

Ah, here it is. The plaque. So few know about; less get to see it.
Well done, you made it. You’re one of us now.

See, proof this station was the first. She’s the oldest, the prototype – and still turning thanks to us maintenance crews.
“Lave” – ha! Reverse the letters. Short for ‘evaluation’. When she creaks we talk to her, calm her.
Some call her ‘Val’, some ‘Eve’. Yep, she was the first alright.

The controller groaned when he heard the explosion. Faulcon_de_Lacy had a deal with Lave Academy to provide as many free Sidewinders to students as they needed. This new lot of recruits took full advantage.

He watched another Sidewinder dodge the hull remnants and silently pass through the docking slot. He fingered his trigger muttering to himself “were you too distracted by that firework display to remember docking procedure?”.

A storm of laser fire dissolved the Sidewinder into a bright cloud of billowing plasma and plasteel fragments. There was a gleam in the controller’s eye, “You didn’t say the magic word!”

It’s a hot day in Lave station, business had been brisk and the air scrubbers were still only on half power. The heat exchangers just couldn’t keep up with the thermal energy this number of ships produced, as for the fly boys who think it is fun to boost out of the station it all just add to the heat. He watches as a sidewinder emerges from the hanger, leaves the pad, arc’s and crashes into the opposite wall of the station. “Why have rotational correction buttons anyway” he thought as he went back to his cold beer.

Mark lay there watching the stars that were Lave stations landing pad lights on the opposite side of the station twinkle, mind drifts off to younger happier days. School was fun, carefree although now he wished he had listened more. What was that calculation, terminal velocity, mass acceleration due to gravity. Now he knew the station had reduced gravity, was the air density the same as a planet? What speed had he got to? but the final question that passed through his mind was why are there no barriers around the landing pads. Mark blacked out for the last time.

One month ago, smuggling the illegal cargo was the toughest, most intense thing she’d done. But it was lacking something, so she’d stowed it away in a locked space in her cabin on Lave Station, one of the oldest Corolis stations in use. She scoured dozens of systems before finally finding the right part.

Her newly modified android sat up and asked if she needed a drink, or just to snuggle.

If you have ever visited Lave Station, you have probably also encountered members of one of the Old Worlds’ most curious cults – likely without noticing. While other stations are maintained by hired contractors or military engineers, the “Lavean Brotherhood of Engineers” is a religious order built around the belief that Lave Station will play a pivotal role in saving humankind during a future cataclysmic event. The brotherhood cares little for politics; keeping the station – which members of the order are symbolically married to at initiation – running is its holy duty. Leaders of the cult claim to be able to tune in to the station’s “spirit”.

Chris, Lave station’s head of entertainment, despite a valiant effort, failed to hide his shock at the whispered request the customer before him had made; a man mostly hidden behind a heavy jacket with the collar pulled up, a wide brimmed hat pulled low and oversized sunglasses.
A disguise, as obvious as it was ineffectual – serving to make him more distinctive, not less.
The silence between them began to stretch, the customer shuffled nervously. An answer was required.
Finally, reluctantly, his composure barely regained, Chris leaned forward and whispered, ‘Grant, there’s no such thing as hardcore zero gee Thargoid porn.’

Jack moved through the bowels of Lave Station One. Some idiot had crashed into its’ back on a training run and gotten stuck, not bounced or exploded as usual.

In his pressure suit he inspected the collapsed part of the structure from the inside. A straight metal beam looked strangely out of place in the twisted wreckage. A plaque came into view: “Smithonian Institute Loan, year 2752. A western frontier’s railway track dated 1823 to commemorate new human expansion.”.

“Final frontier, alright” he thought, following the line of the historic track through the sidewinder’s canopy, cockpit seat and cabin wall.

Oh Lave station, you are many things to many people. A jewel crossing the night sky. A gateway to the stars. A destination and welcome sight to a weary traveller. A symbol of strength and security in a galaxy brimming with danger. You are a place of work for some and a place of commerce for others. And for a few, those lucky, lucky few, you are that most important thing; a home. For me, for tonight, you are a prison. But my love for you remains true.

Don’t seem to be able to edit, probably due to some idiocy on my part, but tweaked this entry a wee bit, though I doubt it’ll make much difference given the quality of the competition 🙂

MY STATION

Oh Lave station, you are many things to many people. A jewel crossing the night sky. A gateway to the stars. A destination and welcome sight to a weary traveller. A symbol of strength and security in a galaxy brimming with danger. You are a place of work for some and a place of commerce for others. And for those lucky few, you are that most important thing; a home. For me, for tonight, you are none of these things. But my love for you is undiminished.

“Kaze-no-Uta” settled onto pad 18 in Lave station.
Finally! Mankind’s second home, site of the original Elite Pilots’ Academy.

Dar’koba disembarked, locked his ship, passed through the formalities and entered the station proper.

The sights around him were somehow familiar but, at the same time, strange. He intuitively knew the layout of corridors, passageways and open spaces, but the colours were unexpected, a constant surprise, signs of age here and there and the occasional artwork, hitherto seen only in videozines.

Despite this being his first and only real visit to Lave, there was a persuasive, all-pervading sense of coming home.

Over the years he’d managed to trace what had happened to his parents and their ship. He’d found the corrupt industrialist who had paid to have them “removed” and their ship “commandeered” in order to use its advanced technologies for his own profit.

The industrialist’s last words were to name the mercenaries he’d hired to do the job. Dar’koba didn’t hurt him again – just let him die in his own filth.

A vessel entered Lave station and settled in bay 23. The radically modified ship was unmistakably recognisable to Dar’koba. They’d arrived!

After extracting all valuable parts, their ‘patron’ had given the remains of the ship as part payment to the mercenaries.

Dar’koba used the next two cycles to cautiously approach them, commenting on their remarkable ship, asking them what they did for a living.
Finally, he asked them if they were interested in some work. They couldn’t refuse the sum offered, half in advance. They took the bait.

Two ships left Lave.

Some time later just one, a Cobra, returned.

(16/02/15 Edit by Lisa T: Edited at the request of the user, to make drabble valid for the competition.)

The ship reverted to normal space. Its hull a patchwork of dents, scars and flaked paint.
In the cockpit, its two crew fared little better. Unwashed, unshaven, gaunt and pale, despite the proximity of the red star.

“So, now do you want to tell me why we came all the way out here?” the first slumped in his chair.
“Remember Grandpa telling us about Lave station?”
“When it existed. And?”

The second flipped a switch and the speakers hissed and crackled for a moment.
Then, “…ave Radio, the radio with a station. Don’t jump yet! Here’s the latest from GalNet.”

[u]From Bad Things: Good May Spring[/u]
Professor Corinthian Plynth, a renowned philanthropist and charitable benefactor living on Stillman Station in the Baxbakeris System, had made millions carefully brokering precious metals deals, gaining a widespread reputation as an astute and trustworthy business man. His word was better regarded by those he dealt with, than an Imperial decree.

Crippled in youth, his generosity led from his own inability to repay a debt of kindness to a neighbour who, returning from the liberation of far flung Lave, salvaged a set of motorised leg braces which had so profoundly improved Sebastian’s life.

Many speak of the fabled Lave Station with such magnificent prose that the blessed angels, weep at their own drabness by comparison.

Being neither wordsmith nor student of academe, I hesitate before adding my tale to this august tome.

However, for posterity be it known that when space-bound for the first time, I first beheld it’s bejewelled majesty spinning in the heavens against the twinkling midnight gossamer of space, my heart so filled with joy and pride that I could but silently weep at the spectacle.

From that moment, where ‘ere I travel, know that my heart is forever thine.

It’s a hot day in Lave station, business had been brisk and the air scrubbers were still only running on half power. The heat exchangers just couldn’t keep up with the thermal energy this number of ships produced, as for the fly boys who think it is fun to boost out of the station it all just add to the heat. He watches as a sidewinder emerges from the hanger, leaves the pad, arc’s and crashes into the opposite wall of the station. “Why have rotational correction disable toggles anyway” he thought as he went back to his cold beer.

Didn’t realise it was a strict 100 words no more and no less. Please find a modified 100 word exact version above